New Pride window in Belfast City Hall

This article suggests that planning sessions for the window were used for political point scoring against the man who did most for gay rights in Northern Ireland, and the organisers intentionally failed to consult him.

Jeff Dudgeon is a great man, and far too modest about his own role. Unfortunately his politics make him inconvenient for the ruling SF-Alliance combo at City Hall.

I find SF difficult to take generally when they get on their moral high horse, but Alliance's long term track record is that they've promoted gay representatives in relatively recent years, and sold themselves as the party for the alphabet community, but during the time when Norn Iron's progressive party might have made a difference, their gay members were so deeply closeted as to be in Narnia.

So, even if they didn't currently embrace genderwoo, it still feels a bit like stolen valour.

Nope sorry. I have reported a fact. FWR deals in facts, a poster has clearly told me so.

Now FWR has to answer - If gender self ID is so antithetical to women's rights, wellbeing and parity with men - why have the 8 of the top 10 countries in the world to be a women not slipped down these tables since introducing these policies and 'not knowing what a woman is'?

Why have they stayed at the top?

The answer is clear; the countries doing best in the world for women are also the countries doing the best for trans people; they foster the culture and environment in which women and minority groups in general thrive.

The countries that are working against LGBT populations will likewise see women's wellbeing and parity with men diminish. We will have a worked case in practice with the States over the next few years. But at least Trump knows what a woman is, right?

The Mayor actually says,
I'm immensely proud that today I unveiled our new LGBTQIA+ stained glass window in Belfast City Hall.
Isn’t he teeming it with tras?

It is yet another Progress Pride flag complete with the tired, awful, ubiquitous, purloined rainbow, and in this case, all though it has all pride components as symbols, gay men are predominantly represented by the window- given it is a man with a sodomy tee shirt pumping his fist that is the only human figure shown, and relatively large too. The figure is also rather aggressive looking in stance and wording.

Are gay men especially, and pride in general the most important element of a city to be celebrated and promoted in 2025?

Might Belfast people find it offensive for the civic hall to seemingly represent their city as Sodom in the stained glass window?
In my opinion ‘Sodomy’ was not a wise word to include, as it might not have the hoped for effect of being clearly and warmly understood by all Belfast people as being a witty re-appropriation.

In case people don’t realise, the city hall has other windows with different subjects and historic events depicted as well as this recent one:
www.belfastcity.gov.uk/Things-to-Do/City-Hall/Stained-glass-windows

This article suggests that planning sessions for the window were used for political point scoring against the man who did most for gay rights in Northern Ireland, and the organisers intentionally failed to consult him.
www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/fionola-meredith/window-tribute-to-lgbt-people-has-an-obvious-subject-and-is-staring-council-right-in-the-face/35600962.html

It's akin to 'Godwin's Law' - after a certain number of posts, it is inevitable that suggestionsplease will get out the wholly pointless and irrelevant graphs.

I think the idea of a window documenting LGB history is a nice one.

It's a shame this one is both ugly and includes the homophobic 't' slogan. It's turned it from being what should have been an affirming, positive, and celebratory window into a deliberately aggressive, political, and divisive thing. But there you go.

I’m not sure if that poster genuinely has a poor memory or if they think that others won’t remember, but the number of times they screenshot that graph only for posters to explain the wider issues surrounding it is quite baffling. A case of simply not wanting to hear logic, I suppose.

We’ve pointed out the flawed logic in this many, many times. I don’t know whether to be disappointed or impressed that it’s being trotted out again.

I found the Belfast Live report of the unveiling. It was 2 days ago. There is only 1 comment and it's a Father Ted quote.

I am so proud of us.😊

If I'd never met Russell T Davies I would assume he's a straight man from some rural backwater who gets all his information on gay culture from 1990s sitcoms.

If I ever see him again I will strongly recommend that he watch Diamonds Are Forever from 1971. It's not one of the best Bond movies, but does feature Mr Wint and Mr Kidd, two badass hitmen who pose a genuine threat to Bond and just happen to be gay.

A movie from over 50 years ago relies far less on stereotyping than a present day show by our most celebrated gay screenwriter.

Just Books was a bookshop in Belfast. But not just a bookshop, it was a meeting place for those who wanted to break away from our segregated communities. Like Good Vibrations, the record shop.

It closed years ago.

Probably.

After all -

Gay writer says he can only write about gay stuff.
Alien suddenly becomes gay and becomes obsessed with fashion.
Also cries constantly.

Actually that is a rather revealing transformation as far as the state of what counts as homophobia now.

What relevance is this to FWR anyway?

Also I'm disappointed that there are posts here advocating for bricks to be chucked through this window.

Just Books was the anarchist bookshop where people would meet back in the day. I've a feeling it still exists today as a nebulous "collective" that pops up from time to time in the absence of a steady premises.

I always remember it as being a bit of a dump, but some folks are sentimental about its memory.

U=U means undetectable and untransmittable.. No idea about the others.

My personal favourite was the one about anal sex being disgusting and people might associate it with gay men and then understandably be prejudiced against them 😂

I know people are picking up on the sodomy slogan, but what does U=U mean? And why does it say No.4 at the top? Or JustBooks further down? Do these mean something in NI that others don’t recognise?

Unfortunately your man has protected his tweets, which is laughable for a Mayor of a major city.

Why do you think it will lead to increased homophobia?

I think most people who understand the origin will laugh.

Love this 😂

Can you show me where the FOI requests are piling up?

Scold, scold, scold 😂

X isn’t real life you say? Thank you for pointing out that pearl of wisdom.